Environmentalists Try to Discredit McGreevey

By MELODY PETERSEN

Published: May 30, 1997

TRENTON, May 29—
In a state with more Superfund sites than any other, State Senator James E. McGreevey won praise from environmentalists five years ago by sponsoring an innovative environmental law that has helped clean up New Jersey's hazardous waste.

But now a major state environmental lobbying group, which praised Mr. McGreevey at the time, has endorsed his chief rival, United States Representative Robert E. Andrews, and is waging a vehement effort to discredit Mr. McGreevey as he campaigns to be the Democrat who runs against Gov. Christine Todd Whitman next fall.

And Mr. Andrews is running television advertisements that portray Mr. McGreevey as a friend to corporate polluters. The commercials refer to Mr. McGreevey's work for a pharmaceutical company in the late 1980's and say he lobbied state legislators to keep open a pipeline that was spewing waste into the sea.

Mr. McGreevey says he did not lobby against closing that pipeline, in Toms River. Instead, he says, he played only a small role in trying to amend the bill that ultimately closed it. And some of those heavily involved in the chemical industry's lobby against closing the pipeline also say Mr. McGreevey was not actively involved.

But the State Senator's efforts to defend himself have only further angered the environmental group, the New Jersey Environmental Federation. It has repeatedly denounced Mr. McGreevey in news conferences and last week filed a complaint with the State Election Law Enforcement Commission accusing him of misrepresenting his environmental record in radio ads that were paid for with taxpayer dollars.

All three candidates receive public money for their campaigns under state law.

Some environmentalists outside the federation, however, say that both Mr. McGreevey and Mr. Andrews have strong records on protecting the environment.

''They both score above average, and that's a good thing,'' said Curtis Fisher, the executive director of the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group Citizen Lobby, which keeps detailed scorecards on legislators in both Trenton and Washington.

The third Democratic candidate, Michael Murphy, has no environmental record because his only public service has been as Morris County Prosecutor. Mr. Murphy has pledged to halt the spread of residential sprawl into the state's fast-dwindling farmlands by enforcing the state's master land use plan.

For the last two years, the federation and other environmental groups have steadily criticized Mrs. Whitman for making deep budget cuts at the State Department of Environmental Protection and for diluting some of the state's toughest environmental regulations.

As a State Assemblyman in 1992, Mr. McGreevey sponsored the Pollution Prevention Act, which state regulators estimate has cut toxic emissions by as much as half.

Photo: State Senator James E. McGreevey, right, discussed his record with David Pringle, left, of the New Jersey Environmental Federation, at the Gateway National Recreation Area at Sandy Hook, N.J., on Tuesday. (Associated Press)